


a pair of dreamers

by AlphaBanana



Category: Shepherds of Haven - Lena Nguyen
Genre: Body Horror, F/M, sex mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:55:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28176531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaBanana/pseuds/AlphaBanana
Summary: They learned in Capra that dreams can influence reality as surely as the other way around.
Relationships: Trouble Alder/Main Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	a pair of dreamers

_Lorena isn’t in the habit of having good dreams._

_So she is pleasantly surprised when, instead of the day of her flowering, this dream has a very different flower at its centre._

_Trouble’s hands are on her, touching everywhere he can reach, and they are rough and calloused and warm, she feels warm all over, heat flooding over her from its source, his mouth at her core._

_It’s not the first time she’s thought about it. And, from the way he flushes when she is close to him, she’s definitely not the only one who has thought about it._

_And then they are joined, one person two bodies, and his mouth on hers is ambrosia, and his body on hers is Arcadia._

_In her dream, she cups his face, as she has always desired to in her waking life, the wanting so profound sometimes that it makes her fingers twitch. His cheeks are soft and warm—_

_Too warm._

_All of it is too warm now, and when she looks at her hands again they are living flame, and when she tries to yank them away from Trouble’s face they won’t_ **_move_ **—

_Lorena has always liked going to the Church of the One-God, liked feeling at home among the candles, sometimes staying for hours just to watch the candles dwindle, flames caressing wax until it drips languorously down._

_This is not that._

_This is agony - not her own, but Trouble’s and his screams drive into her skull like knives even as striking blue-gold eyes melt and soft skin dissolves into ash and they are both_ **_screaming_ ** _—_

“Lori!”

Lorena wakes with a start, looks straight into blue-gold eyes wide with worry, and all at once the relief, the shame and the _fear_ wash over her, and she can nothing more than stare at him, mouth moving but unable to form the words ( _what words, what could she possibly say?_ ). Instead, she flees, leaving Trouble gaping and gasping, but very much alive, clutching at her bedsheets as if they are an anchor.

———

Trouble sits for a while, not understanding what has just happened.

 _She looked scared._ He feels an ache, a _need_ to comfort, but she is already gone, launching herself from the bed with a mumbled apology (for what, he has no idea).

The little glimpses he catches of her during the day are hardly enough to reassure him - when he sees her from a distance she averts golden eyes and it is like the sun itself has gone out. And once, when he somehow takes her unawares waiting outside Blade’s office, she flees once more, but not before flinching from his outstretched hand and _that_ hurts, but _why_ would it—

It hurts for reasons he does not have time to think about - he needs all of his concentration to train his recruits.

Later, once he has finished (some of them are so weak that it feels less like training and more like beating them black and blue), he is passing her room and hears sobs. Pauses for a moment outside to hear broken snatches of a conversation.

 _“Red, I_ **_can’t_ **—“

 _“It’s Trouble - what do you think he’s going to say? He’s worried_ **_for_ ** _you now, you need to talk to him—”_

_“I just need time—”_

A pause, and from the rustle of fabrics Trouble thinks he is hearing Red rubbing Lori’s shoulders.

 _“What happened in the dream—It was_ **_just_ ** _a dream, Ren. It wasn’t real. Trouble—”_

_“Trouble can never know.”_

She sounds more assured than he has ever heard her, even through the thickness of her tears, and even as Red makes a noise of dissent, Lori cuts him off. _“I_ **_mean_ ** _it._ **_Never_ ** _.”_

Trouble staggers away from the door and retreats to the rooftop to smoke the charch he has tried to keep to a minimum since Lori joined them.

Had he done something? Had she dreamt of him hurting her—

And that seemed to slot into place, fill the questioning gap that had been at the back of Trouble’s mind since that morning, and he felt the realisation in the pit of his stomach.

She had looked horrified when she had seen him in the morning, nauseous almost - and Trouble had felt awful for her when he saw that look on her face but now?

_What had he done?_

———

It does not take Red long to come and find Trouble, to intercede on Lori’s behalf.

He _knows_ Red still holds a candle for Lori and maybe always will, has known that since the mages came to Haven from Capra, and the glowing tones he uses to speak of her have hardly dispelled the notion - only last week he had marvelled at her.

_It was a mundane training briefing - senior recruits talking about the younger or more inexperienced members of their respective companies...but it became very clear to Trouble very quickly that Red was not paying attention to whatever Blade was saying._

_“She lights up a room. It’s good that that hasn’t changed.” Red’s voice was tinged with pride and something else, and Trouble looked over to her, laughing with Chase, golden even in the winter sun, and could not help but smile softly._

_“Like the sun.”_

“You need to talk to Ren.” Red has dispensed with his usual easy manner and instead, green eyes flare, and Trouble reflexively sits back a little.

“You think I haven’t tried?” Trouble lets himself scowl then, even if he isn’t sure quite _who_ is the reason for his scowl.

“Try harder.” Red’s tone is stern, even as he looks worn and weary.

Trouble pauses a moment, before he feels his shoulders sag under the weight of _something_ he cannot fully name.

“What did I do to her?” Trouble’s voice sounds small to his own ears, and he looks out over Haven to avoid meeting Red’s gaze.

Red pauses for a moment - long enough for Trouble to turn back and see Red looking bewildered.

“What?”

“In the dream—” Trouble waves his hand agitatedly, wanting to dispel some of the tension that has been gathered around him since waking this morning and hearing her _scream_ . “What did I do to her in the dream? She looked _scared_ of me, I—”

“Scared, maybe. But not _of_ you. I don’t think she ever could be.” Red’s tone is heavy with _something_ that Trouble can’t quite parse. But he _hopes_ Lori isn’t scared of him, hopes that she trusts him as much as he does her. He’d trust her with his life, has done many times before, and would trust her with more than that.

“Then what?” Trouble presses, and Red rubs a hand over his eyes in frustration.

“I can’t—look, Trouble, you just need to—” A weary sigh leaves Red, and he seems suddenly older in that moment.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

————

A few hours later, Red drags Lorena to a meeting room under the pretence of talking through some irregularities in his mission report, heaves open the heavy oak door open with a strength that he had never possessed when he was her _swain_ , as Tallys says, and—

And leaves her there. With Trouble. Locks the door and she wants to _scream_.

“Red, when I get out there—“

A silence that feels so unlike Red, she thinks he must have already gone, knowing that she would be able to win him over if he stayed.

Lorena rests her forehead against the door, tries to calm her racing heart ( _you ruin everything, you always have_ \- the Dream-Eater is still there, always will be, even now she can still see Zori with accusation in her maggot-filled eyes) and she yelps when Trouble’s gloved hand, still whole and warm with life, clasps her shoulder and turns her to face him.

“Lori.”

He says her name, and it’s tinged with worry, anxiety, _anguish_ \- so different to her fevered imagining ( _Lori, yes—there—Lori_ **_please_ **) and she flushes again at the thought of her subconscious desires—

“Lori, I’m sorry.” He is grave, as he has never been, grave and solemn and so unlike Trouble that she worries she has already ruined them before there was a _them_ to celebrate.

“What?” A whisper, nothing more, caught up in the feel of his hand on her shoulder, the way the blue and gold of his eyes mingle like a coming sunset, and she watches as he looks away in a _regret_ that she does not understand.

“Whatever I did—in the dream—I’m sorry.” Halting, stop-start, and now she is even more lost.

“You didn’t do—I—” and at the last minute she remembers _not_ to say just what the dream was like before she had boiled him alive.

“I dreamt that I was hurting you. With my magic. And I couldn’t stop.” Makes herself hold his gaze, intense now, even as his lips round in an _oh_ that golden eyes cannot help but trace.

“You couldn’t.” His faith in her is unshaken, as Red told her—

And that is too much, and she wheels away from him, tears unshed, still trapped in her throat along with all the other things that she wants to tell him but dare not.

“You don’t _know_ that. I’m dangerous, what if I—”

“You _won’t_ . I trust you.” Those three words mean more than the other three - too many people have told her the other three and lied, but _trust_ —that is more valuable than all the gold in the world—

And now she is crying, sobbing into a broad chest, and even if she doesn’t remember reaching for him he is _there_ , welcoming and reassuring and _warm_ , in all the right ways.


End file.
